


All the Tomorrows

by Sineala



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 3 (1998), Cap_Ironman Bingo, Community: cap_ironman, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 09:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14808759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: When Tony, already badly injured, faces off against the Mandarin, Steve comes to Tony's rescue. It's their first mission since the two of them have gotten together, and Steve discovers that there are some unexpected new feelings he has to deal with.





	All the Tomorrows

**Author's Note:**

> For Cap-IM Bingo, the square "intimacy without sex."
> 
> This is set during/after Iron Man v3 #9 & #10 ("Revenge of the Mandarin"). For context, Tony fights Whiplash and is then set upon, out of the armor, by the Spymaster and his gang of thugs, the Espionage Elite. Natasha finds Tony lying in an alley with his heart stopped, so he's already a mess as he puts the armor on and insists on going off to fight the Mandarin. On the way there Tony nearly flies into a tower, realizes he's not in great shape, and then sets the autopilot and passes out so that he can have a nice relaxing period of unconsciousness while the armor flies him to the Mandarin. As you can tell, Tony is making some great life choices here. I love comics.
> 
> Anyway, Natasha calls the Avengers for backup and I thought there should be a story about the fact that Steve is right there when the team finds Tony in the wreckage of the Mandarin's ship.
> 
> Thanks to Enki and Hayluhalo for beta! Thanks to phoenixmetaphor for plotting help! Yay!

Steve thought he was ready.

He's been an Avenger for a decade, after all. He's fought at Tony's side for years. He's watched Tony throw himself into battle and come away bruised, broken, and bloody. Hell, Tony even died in his arms, not too long ago. And, sure, he cared about him, he'd always cared about him from the beginning -- but he also knew that Tony was an Avenger. Tony might not have enlisted, but he'd signed up for this the same way they all had. He was out there risking his life every day. That was the deal, and Steve had accepted that. He had. He was handling it.

He thought he could still handle it.

But two weeks ago, Tony backed him up against the wall of the Quinjet hangar and started kissing him, and that changed everything.

Now Steve's standing on a muddy slope in the dark, somewhere near Chelyabinsk, with all the Avengers he could grab and shove onto a Quinjet in the five minutes after Natasha had shown up at the front door saying _Tony's hurt and he needs backup right now_ \--

And he doesn't get combat nerves, he doesn't get scared, but his heart's pounding hard enough to break bone and there's a terrible gray haze in his head and _Tony's hurt_ and he can't see Tony, God, where is he, what if he's already--

Then it gets worse, because Steve looks up.

An airship, a dragon airship, easily a mile long, floats in the starry sky. Its mechanical tail lashes back and forth, angry and foreboding. Its gaping maw is lined with shining steel teeth.

And Steve knows: that's where Tony is.

The Mandarin has him.

The terror in his stomach crumples into an awful sick helplessness. Tony's trapped up there and there's _nothing he can do_. He's got Natasha, Wanda, Vance and Angel. Only the new kids can fly and there's no way he's sending them up into that thing by themselves. For one awful instant, he contemplates running back into the Quinjet, firing it up, and launching himself straight down that monstrosity's throat in search of Tony.

But he can't. They need him here. They need him to fight. He needs to think rationally.

So he grits his teeth, lifts his shield, and tries not to think about how Natasha said Tony already had three broken ribs and a concussion, and when she found him lying in an alley in Paris his heart wasn't beating.

He wanted to say _how could you let him go_ but he knows that Tony makes his own choices. It's just that sometimes his choices are terrible.

He can't think about what he would have done if he had been there instead of Natasha. He can't think about gathering Tony in his arms and holding him close and taking him somewhere safe. He can't let himself be distracted. 

It doesn't mean he doesn't love Tony.

But right now, he can't think about that.

* * *

Luckily, they have the Winter Guard on their side against the Mandarin's forces, and Wanda can channel Simon. Steve sends Vance, Angel, Simon, and the fliers from the Winter Guard up against the dragon, and all he can do is wait and try not to get himself killed. He takes a few more hits than maybe he should have.

He hears the comm chatter. They're not having a lot of luck in the air.

They can't break in, and Tony is trapped and Tony is probably _dying_ , and if Steve had known he was going to be like this when Tony got hurt--

Well, he'd have done everything just the same.

But he'd have known.

Above him, the dragon ship erupts in fire, racked with explosions from within.

"Good lord!" Steve says. "The ship!"

But what he really means is _Tony_.

His heart is in his throat, and his eyes are trained on the heavens, looking for the one thing that could make any of this okay again: a familiar red-gold speck, flying out of the blossoms of fire. Flying or falling -- he almost doesn't care which, as long as Tony is there, as long as Tony's not trapped within the belly of the beast, burning, dying--

He doesn't see Tony.

Tony hasn't made it out in time.

The dragon falls.

Tony's alive, Steve tells himself. Tony has to be alive. He can't let himself believe otherwise.

* * *

They still have a fight to clean up on the ground. The Mandarin had mercenaries, after all. So that means it's another hour before they're all out of danger, before Steve can run to the smoking rubble of the fallen ship and start throwing plating aside with his bare hands.

Natasha is the one who sees him first.

Tony is lying face-down atop a pile of twisted, melted metal. There's a cable wrapped around his throat, holding him down as he struggles to push himself upright. His armor is scraped and dented, and there's something red-brown, mostly congealed now, dull on his golden faceplate. It's smeared around the mouth-slit of his armor.

It's blood, Steve realizes. He's been coughing up blood.

Jesus God, Tony.

"Iron Man?" Natasha calls out. "Iron Man -- are you all right?"

Tony has freed himself from the cabling. He's staggering to his feet. He doesn't look at the rest of them. Steve's not even sure he can see them at all; he's lurching, like he's just responding blindly to Natasha's voice.

"Oh," Tony says. "Hiya, Tasha. We have--" the vocal filters on his armor cut out, and the rest of his words are an all-too-human rasp of agony-- "we have to stop meeting like this--"

And then he pitches forward, unconscious.

* * *

Steve's the one who carries Tony back to the Quinjet. Steve's the one who strips Tony out of his armor, revealing his face caked in blood, his ripped and bloodied clothes. He has to pause to stare at him in horror, even as he tells himself that Tony could be dying, and there's no time for this--

Dimly, he's aware of the rest of the team up front, preparing for takeoff. They'd help him if he asks. All he has to do is ask. But then they'd-- then they'd take Tony away from him and he wouldn't--

He has to be here. At Tony's side.

He manages to get Tony strapped down into the cot bare seconds before the Quinjet launches with the jolting bump that Steve recognizes as an emergency takeoff. Tony doesn't stir.

He gets the medical scan started. Amazingly, Tony is actually stable; whatever internal injuries he has aren't immediately life-threatening. Steve's willing to bet that he has at least a punctured lung. He's broken a ridiculous number of bones and the bruising is extensive -- Steve can see that much when he undoes Tony's shredded cuff and rolls his sleeve up. Everything is a mass of black and blue.

Oh, God. Steve wants to be sick.

The last time they were together was three days ago. He went to see Tony at his penthouse above the Stark Solutions offices, and Tony smiled at him and tumbled him into his ridiculously huge, opulent bed. He ran his hands over Tony's body; he held Tony in his arms and kissed him everywhere. Tony didn't look like this. Tony was safe and unharmed and unmarred and nothing like this.

Tony's so fragile. Under all the armor, Tony's an ordinary man. If Steve could give him his strength, his healing, he'd do it in an instant.

Steve gets out the morphine drip. Tony can be mad about this later, because this way Tony's going to be alive to be mad about this later. He hangs the bag, unrolls the tubing, wipes down the least-bruised spot he can find on Tony's arm.

That's when he realizes that his hands are shaking too badly. He shouldn't be the one trying to place an IV.

He lets the bag hang and he heads forward; the entire team -- including Natasha in the pilot's seat -- turns around when they see him, concern writ large on their tired, graying faces. He doesn't want to know what his own face looks like.

Steve clears his throat. "Can someone help me start an IV?"

They look at each other, and Wanda nods and rises from her seat. "I've got this." She takes Steve's arm as she comes toward him, leading him back to Tony. "He's going to be all right, Steve."

* * *

Wanda gets the morphine started and then leaves them alone. There's nothing Steve can do but wait. Tony's chest rises and falls. His breathing doesn't sound great. But he's still breathing, and his heart's still beating. He's had worse. He's had a lot worse.

Steve wets a cloth and starts to wipe all the blood off Tony's face.

Tonight was supposed to be date night.

* * *

Tony's hand twitches in Steve's grasp somewhere over the Atlantic, and Tony comes awake a few seconds later, which Steve can tell because the first thing he does is try to go for the IV. Steve holds his hand back.

"Hey, no," Steve tells him. "You need that, Shellhead."

Tony's eyes flicker open. One of them is red through the sclera. Broken blood vessels.

"Steve," Tony slurs, and the corners of his mouth quiver ever so slightly as he tries to smile. It feels like someone's lifted a hundred-pound weight from Steve's chest. He's awake. He's going to be okay.

"That's my name," Steve says, giving Tony's hand a squeeze.

Tony smiles again. "You came," he says, contentedly. He sounds a little woozy, but he usually is just that happy to see Steve anyway.

"Of course I did," Steve tells him. "You needed the Avengers. I wasn't just going to stay home when you needed me, was I?"

Tony squints at him; Steve can see him trying to piece together what happened. "We won?" Tony asks, groggily. "Everybody okay?"

"Last I checked, they hadn't found the Mandarin's body," Steve says, "but the team's fine. You're the only one who took any hits, period. It was me, Natasha, Wanda, Vance, and Angel. They're all okay."

Tony grimaces. "Oh, God, did the kids see me looking like an idiot? Tell me the truth."

"The kids nearly saw you looking _dead_ ," Steve says, and his voice is shaking, and he thinks maybe he's going to cry.

Combat never hits him like this. He takes a breath, tries to get himself under control. Tony's here. Tony's alive. Tony's going to be okay.

"Yeah." Tony exhales gingerly. "This was maybe not one of my better plans."

Steve rubs the back of Tony's hand. "Oh, you think, genius?"

If Tony had waited even a few minutes, he wouldn't have had to go in alone. But Steve knows that he made the best call. He's not second-guessing Tony's decisions just because they're together now.

"I feel like hell," Tony says. He sounds so miserable. He doesn't usually let himself sound like this.

Steve wants to hold him, but no part of Tony's body is safe to touch. He settles for patting Tony's hair, as gently as he can, with his other hand.

"It'll probably be a couple weeks before you're even on your feet again," Steve says. And that's getting off lightly.

Tony grins. Tony always has a smile for him, even like this. "So that's a no on the victory sex?"

"That is _definitely_ a no on the victory sex," Steve says. "Also there are four other people in this Quinjet."

"Pfft," Tony says. "Victory orgy."

"I'd really rather not share," Steve says.

He knows Tony is drugged to his eyeballs, and he knows it's a joke. And he knows they haven't exactly talked about this, their future together, where they see this headed. This is probably not the time for this conversation.

Tony's cracked lips part in a smile. "Me neither, actually. You're more than enough for me. For-- for--" he fumbles his way through the word-- "forever."

For the first time in hours, the feeling rising up in Steve's chest is something bright. "Same goes for me, Shellhead."

"Well," Tony breathes. "How about that, huh?"

He's smiling, and his eyes are sliding shut, and Steve holds his hand tight as he falls asleep again.

Tony's going to get better. Steve knows it. And Steve's going to be at his side when he wakes up, today, and tomorrow, and all the tomorrows they have.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's the usual Tumblr post](http://sineala.tumblr.com/post/174425562469/fic-all-the-tomorrows).


End file.
